PROJECTS AWAITING FUNDING

GENERAL OPERATING SUPPORT

CITYarts’ programs are specifically designed for youth in underprivileged communities and deliberately aim to diversify workshops and project sites in order to expose youth to a wide range of perspectives. CITYarts executes its programs through the youth-adult partnership model, meaning young people are treated as individuals with the capacity to make positive and wide-ranging contributions.

CITYarts’ nearly 300 mural projects around the 5 boroughs of New York and around the globe require constant upkeep, maintenance, and restoration. By contributing to CITYarts’ Mural Maintenance, Restoration, and Support Fund, you are ensuring that CITYarts’ mural projects can continue to hold a positive impact on communities. 90% of all CITYarts murals stay graffiti free, displaying the community’s commitment to the project they participated in and the longstanding impact engaging our youth can have.

COMMUNITY IDENTITY PROGRAM

UMMA PARK MURAL PROJECT Flatbush Neighborhood, Brooklyn

CITYarts was approached by Brooklyn Community Board 14 and the Umma Group with a request for a mural project that would invigorate Umma Park into a space that fosters positive community activities and engage local youth in an art project during summer and after-school hours, giving local youth a sense of ownership and pride in their community.

In 2002, Alice in Wall Street Land was created two blocks from Ground Zero in collaboration with over 100 students from Stuyvesant High School, the Washington Market Community, and professional artist Natalia Zukerman. In the Spring of 2012 CITYarts began restoring Alice in Wall Street Land, by repainting chipped areas and redesigning larger areas of the mural that were beyond repair. Before we could finish our restoration in Fall 2012, Hurricane Sandy hit New York City. The CITYarts Alice in Wall Street Land mural was under three-feet of water. This recreation/restoration will give a new generation of Stuyvesant students and community members the chance to leave their mark on the wall.

The students of The Hamilton Grange School need to feel at home in their new space, a public middle school that opened its doors in September 2014 to a class of 6th graders in Harlem,New York. This 3 year project will help grow and develop the school and its community of students. CITYarts’ project will start off impacting approximately 70 at risk boys and girls in the incoming class. Workshops will lead to the developement and creation of a mural in Hamilton Grange that will reinvigorate and transform the school into the home and safe space where these students spend most of their days.

CITYarts is responding to the cry of the neighborhood to restore & recreate the mural we created with the community in 1993. CITYarts will bring back the original students from the School of Visual Arts who worked on the mural in 1993 as the leading artists to repaint the mural, together with inner city youth from the community, current students from the School of Visual Arts, and students from the High School of Art and Design. Originally painted in 1993, The Nature of This Flower Is to Bloom has become a landmark for the community and a meaningful work of art in their daily lives. The mural was inspired by Alice Walker’s poem “The Nature of This Flower Is to Bloom” and created by CITYarts in collaboration with the School of Visual Arts students and 3 teachers.

Doing Art Together approached CITYarts with a request for a mural project that would uplift the students at P.S. 277 in the South Bronx, engage students in an art project during after-school hours, and give local youth a sense of ownership and pride in their school. CITYarts’ project will start off impacting approximately 60 at-risk boys and girls in P.S. 277’s 4th and 5th grade classes. CITYarts workshops will lead to the development and creation of two murals in P.S. 277 that will reinvigorate and transform the school into a welcoming and safe space where students spend most of their time. According to the NYC Department of Education, 18% of students at P.S. 277 are English Language Learners and 22% are students with special needs. According to recent census figures, more than 40% of families in the Mott Haven community live in poverty. The project will have 3 primary components: a series of art workshops, the creation of a large scale mural in the P.S. 277 school building, and the creation of a mural on the main entryway doors of the school building. All components will be led by local professional artist Netonda Hall, selected by CITYarts and Doing Art Together. Titled “My Passport to the Arts,” workshops will teach artistic skills and explain ideas of identity and community building through hands on arts activities, field trips to local cultural institutions, and discussions with guest speakers.

CITYarts will be collaborating with the Department of Youth and Community Development to develop a pilot program for DYCD Beacon centers in the 5 boroughs of New York. As part of this year’s pilot program, we will be building 5 structures – one in each borough. Each Beacon center will submit a design for a 5×4 foot structure, which will be reviewed by a panel made up of DYCD and CITYarts staff. Five sculpture finalists will be selected (one from a Beacon center in each borough), and a 1st place winner will be announced. The 1st place winner’s design will be fabricated and erected outside of each finalist’s center as part of this year’s cohort of Beacon arts centers. While the structures will be identical, youth at each of the 5 centers will customize their structure by painting a unique design on the sculpture. In the summer of 2015, CITYarts will run eight two hour art workshops with youth from the 5 winning Beacon centers. A professional artist will lead youth through the design process to ultimately create a customized maquette to paint each sculpture. The last four workshops will be devoted to painting the structure.

KIDS FOR JUSTICE PROGRAM

EMPOWERING EACH OTHER FOR A BETTER FUTUREHarlem and Upper West Side, ManhattanThis two-year project will engage approximately 200 Hamilton Grange middle school students, 600 High School For Law, Advocacy And Community Justice (LACJ) students, and 75 students from the City College of New York, in art education workshops, the creation of indoor murals, and the restoration of CITYarts’ first Peace Wall located in Jacob H. Schiff Park, directly adjacent to Hamilton Grange.
Throughout the project, the middle, high school and college students will form empowering and beneficial cross-peer relationships in which college students mentor the high schools students and high school students mentor the middle school students. The students will be supported by CITYarts staff, a professional artist, community volunteers and guest speakers. This unique mentoring model will enable the students to create safe, welcoming and inspiring spaces; establish a sense of belonging in their respective communities; and develop the tools and skills to be successful, now and in the future.

GLOBAL HeARTwarming PROGRAM

GARDEN PLAYGROUND MURALBushwick, Brooklyn

CITYarts was approached by the Brooklyn Borough Parks Department to address a pressing need for the revitalization and beautification of Garden Playground in Bushwick. In partnership with Brooklyn Parks through the Community Parks Initiative, CITYarts will bring in a professional artist to lead youth in the creation of a mural in their playground focusing on nature and raising awareness for climate change.

Global Heart Warming is an environmental arts project designed to engage, inform and empower young people to ask: “What can I do to help combat global warming?” CITYarts, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, and NASA will work with local disadvantaged youth to workshops and create a large scale outdoor mural in a Chelsea Park.

YOUNG MINDS BUILD BRIDGES PROGRAM

HARLEM PEACE WALL RESTORATIONHarlem, Manhattan

CITYarts’ first Peace Wall in Jacob Schiff Park has been a backdrop for the community since 2005. After standing out in the elements, the Peace Wall has weathered the elements and is in need of repairs. We invite you to join us in once more beautifying our community and bringing back this wall for peace to its original state!

Our Peace Walls, permanent public artwork, serves as a testament to tolerance and respect that will inspire young people for years to come. Young Minds Build Bridges began building Peace Walls in 2005 with the creation of the first Peace Wall in Harlem, New York, United States, followed by Peace Walls in Karachi, Pakistan; Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Israel; London, United Kingdom; and Berlin, Germany. The Brazil Peace Wall will be produced in the favelas of Sao Paulo, promoting peace and tolerance to a turbulent, poverty-stricken neighborhood.

The Pieces for Peace international mosaic consists of tile-sized paintings, drawings and poems on paper contributed by students from around the world and assembled by CITYarts online as a major collaborative work of art. The original student artworks were displayed in a traveling exhibition in the U.S., including the Cork Gallery at Avery Fisher Hall (Lincoln Center), the Manhattan Jewish Community Center, the Gabarron Foundation, and The Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey before going on the international tour to Egypt, Israel, and Spain.

CITYarts’ Pieces for Peace Workshops in public schools, community centers and after-school programs around the world provide the opportunity for students to learn from their peers and a teaching artist. The students discuss the subject of peace in their lives within a group setting and are then asked to express their individual ideas by creating an artwork. The students’ artwork will be part of a worldwide social networking project, CITYarts’ “Young Minds Build Bridges,” that connects young people to thousands of youth from different cultural backgrounds around the world.

OTHER PROJECTS AND OPPORTUNITIES

ARTIST IN RESIDENCE

An artist in residence would conduct individual CITYarts Pieces for Peace workshops in approximately 30 NYC public schools and afterschool programs, grades 8-12. The Pieces for Peace workshops offer much-needed art education to students in areas in desperate need of quality arts programming. The format provides the opportunity for students to learn creative concept development and art skills as they discuss the subject of peace within a group setting and are then asked to express their individual ideas by creating an artwork.

In celebrating 46 years of creating public art projects in New York and internationally, this book will highlight 46 projects out of nearly 300 that exemplify CITYarts’ innovative approach to fostering creative collaborations between youth and professional artists. The book will visually demonstrate the process of transforming blighted environments into vibrant meeting spaces that impact the lives of their young creators and communities with photographs from before, during, and after the completion of each mural project. The book will also include a DVD and a How-To section on creating a mural, giving readers an opportunity to consider transforming their community.

CITYarts has provided meaningful, hands-on volunteer opportunities for groups from corporations like Unilever, Credit Suisse, and Goldman Sachs. Working on-site with participating youth, volunteers directly contribute to the mural and to the beautification of low-income neighborhoods.

CITYarts’ 48th Annual Benefit promises to be a beautiful event that will celebrate CITYarts’ longstanding success in uniting youth from around the world through the creative process. We usually have about 300 guests from all walks of life – business executives, philanthropists, artists, collectors, ambassadors, and high-level celebrities. In addition, we honor two or three people each year – previous honorees include Dr. Maya Angelou, Daniel Libeskind, Sheila Johnson, Astronaut, Leland Melvin, Jeanne and Nicolas Rohatyn, and Louise Bourgeois. Previous event sponsors include Agnes Gund, Ambassador Felix Rohatyn, Allianz, The Walt Disney Company, and the Fisher Brothers.